Mr. Witt's Widow: A Frivolous Tale

“You duped me nicely between you,” Gerald continued, “me and all the world. No truth in it all! A mistake! – all a mistake! He found out – his mistake!” His voice rose almost to a shriek, and ended in a bitter laugh.

“You needn’t be a brute,” said George, coldly.

Gerald looked at him, then at Neaera, and uttered another sneering laugh. George was close by him now, seeming to watch every motion of his lips. Neaera rose from her chair, and flung herself at the feet of the angry man.

“Ah, Gerald, my love, have pity!” she wailed.

“Pity!” he echoed, drawing back, so that she fell on her face before him. “Pity! I might pity a thief, I might pity a liar, I have no pity for a – ”

The sentence went unfinished, for, with a sudden motion, George closed on him, and flung him through the open door out of the room.

“Finish your blackguardism outside!” he said, as he shut the door and turned the key.

CHAPTER XVII.

LAURA DIFFERS

Ira brevis furor, says the moralist; and the adjective is the only part of the saw that is open to exception. Gerald Neston’s wrath burnt fiercely, but it burnt steadily also, and reflection brought with it nothing but a stronger conviction of his wrongs. To George, the interpretation his cousin put on his action in shielding Neaera seemed to argue that uncommon degree of wrong-headedness that is hardly distinguishable from immorality. Yet, in the recesses of George’s heart lurked the knowledge that Mrs. Witt, plain, old, unattractive, might have reaped scant mercy, at his hands; and Gerald, if he did not believe all he had brutally hinted, believed quite enough of it to make him regard George as a traitor and Neaera as an intriguer. What sane man could have acted as George had acted, unless under a woman’s fascination? Jealousy did the rest, for Neaera herself had sapped the strength of her lover’s trust in her, and he doubted not that she who had deluded him in everything else had not hesitated to practise on him the last deceit. She and George were confederates. Need any one ask how they became so, or what the terms of the alliance were?

It was hardly wonderful that this theory, strange as it seemed, should find a place in Gerald’s disordered mind, or that, having done so, it should vent itself in intemperate words and reckless sneers. It was, however, more remarkable that the opinion gained some general favour. It pleased the cynical, for it explained away what seemed like a generous action; it pleased the gossips, for it introduced into the Neston affair the topic most congenial to gossips; it pleased the “unco guid,” for it pointed the moral of the ubiquity of sin; it pleased men as a sex, because it made George’s conduct natural and explicable; it pleased women as a sex, because it ratified the opinion they had always held of beautiful mysterious widows in general, and of Neaera Witt in particular. And amid this chorus, the voice of the charitable, admitting indiscretion, but asserting generosity, was lost and hushed, and George’s little band of friends and believers were dubbed blind partisans and, by consequence, almost accomplices.

Fortunately for George, among his friends were men who cared little for public reprobation. Mr. Blodwell did his work, ate his dinner, said what he thought, and esteemed the opinion of society much at the value the Duke of Wellington set upon the views of the French nation. As for Lord Mapledurham and Sidmouth Vane, unpopularity was the breath of their nostrils; and Vane did not hesitate to purchase the pleasure of being in a minority by a sacrifice of consistency; he abandoned the theory which he had been among the first to suggest, as soon as the suggestion passed by general acceptance into vulgarity.

The three men gave George Neston a dinner, drank Neaera’s health, and allowed themselves an attitude of almost contemptuous protest against the verdict of society – a verdict forcibly expressed by the Bull’s-eye, when it declared with not unnatural warmth that it had had enough of this “sordid affair.” But then the Bull’s-eye had hardly shown its wonted perspicacity, and Mr. Espion declared that he had not been treated in a respectful way. There was no traversing the fact; George’s party fell back on a denial of the obligation.

Mankind is so constructed that the approbation of man does not satisfy man, nor that of woman woman. If all the clubs had been ringing with his praises, George Neston would still have turned his first and most eager glance to Mrs. Pocklington’s. As it was, he thought of little else than what view of his conduct would gain the victory there. Alas! he knew only too soon. Twice he called: twice was entrance refused him. Then came a note from Mrs. Pocklington – an unanswerable note; for the lady asserted nothing and denied nothing; she intrenched herself behind common opinion. She, as George knew, was a tolerably independent person so far as her own fame was concerned: but where her daughter was interested, it was another thing; Laura’s suitor must not be under a cloud; Laura’s future must not be jeopardied; Laura’s affections must be reposed only where absolute security could be guaranteed. Mr. Pocklington agreed with his wife to the full. Hence there must be an end of everything – so far as the Pocklington household was concerned, an end of George Neston. And poor George read the decree, and groaned in his heart. Nevertheless, strange events were happening behind that door, so firmly, so impenetrably closed to George’s eager feet – events to Mrs. Pocklington inconceivable, even while they actually happened; to her husband, alarming, reprehensible, extraordinary, puzzling, amusing, almost, in a way, delightful. In fine, Laura rebelled. And the declaration of independence was promulgated on this wise.

Mrs. Pocklington had conveyed to her daughter, with all delicacy requisite and imaginable, the new phase of the affair. It shocked and distressed her to allude to such things; but Laura was a woman now, and must know – and so forth. And Laura heard it all with no apparent shock – nay, with a calmness approaching levity; and when she was told that all communications between herself and George must cease, she shook her pretty head and retired to her bedroom, neither accepting nor protesting against the decision.

The next morning after breakfast she appeared, equipped for a walk, holding a letter in her hand. Mrs. Pocklington had ordered her household, and had now sat down to a comfortable hour with a novel before luncheon. Dis aliter visum.

“I am going out, mamma,” Laura began, “to post this note to Mr. Neston.”

Mrs. Pocklington never made mistakes in the etiquette of names, and assumed a like correctness in others. She imagined her daughter referred to Gerald. “Why need you write to him?” she asked, looking up. “He’s nothing more than an acquaintance.”

“Mamma! He’s an intimate friend.”

“Gerald Neston an intimate friend! Why – ”

“I mean Mr. George Neston,” said Laura, in a calm voice, but with a slight blush.

“George!” exclaimed Mrs. Pocklington. “What in the world do you want to write to George Neston for? I have said all that is necessary.”

“I thought I should like to say something too.”

“My dear, certainly not. If you had been – if there had been anything actually arranged, perhaps a line from you would have been right; though, under the circumstances, I doubt it. As it is, for you to write would simply be to give him a chance of reopening the acquaintance.”

Laura did not sit down, but stood by the door, prodding the carpet with the point of her parasol. “Is the acquaintance closed?” she asked, after a pause.

“You remember, surely, what I said yesterday? I hope it’s not necessary to repeat it.”

“Oh no, mamma; I remember it.” Laura paused, gave the carpet another prod, and went on, “I’m just writing to say I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Jack’s Darling” fell from Mrs. Pocklington’s paralysed grasp.

“Laura, how dare you? It is enough for you that I have decided what is to be done.”

“You see, mamma, when everybody is turning against him, I want to show him he has one friend, at least, who doesn’t believe these hateful stories.”

“I wonder you haven’t more self-respect. Considering what is said about him and Neaera Witt – ”

“Oh, bother Mrs. Witt!” said Laura, actually smiling. “Really, mamma, it’s nonsense; he doesn’t care that for Neaera Witt!” And she tried to snap her fingers; but, happily for Mrs. Pocklington’s nerves, the attempt was a failure.

“I shall not argue with you, Laura. You will obey me, and there is an end of it.”

“You told me I was a woman yesterday. If I am, I ought to be allowed to judge for myself. Anyhow, you ought to hear what I have to say.”

“Give me that letter, Laura.”

“I’m very sorry, mamma; but – ”

“Give it to me.”

“Very well; I shall have to write another.”

“Do you mean to defy me, Laura?”

Laura made no answer.

Mrs. Pocklington opened and read the letter.

“Dear Mr. Neston,” (it ran) —

“I want you to know that I do not believe a single word of what they are saying. I am very sorry for poor Mrs. Witt, and I think you have acted splendidly. Isn’t it charming weather? Riding in the park in the morning is a positive delight.

“With kindest regards,

    “Yours very sincerely,
    “Laura F. Pocklington.”

Mrs. Pocklington gasped. The note was little better than an assignation! “I shall show this to your father,” she said, and swept out of the room.

Laura sat down and wrote an exact copy of the offending document, addressed it, stamped it, and put it in her pocket. Then, with ostentatious calmness, she took up “Jack’s Darling,” and appeared to become immersed in it.

Mrs. Pocklington found it hard to make her husband appreciate the situation; indeed, she had scarcely risen to it herself. Everybody talks of heredity in these days: the Pocklingtons, both people of resolute will, had the opportunity of studying its working in their own daughter. The result was fierce anger in Mrs. Pocklington, mingled anger and admiration in her husband, perplexity in both. Laura’s position was simple and well defined. By coercion and imprisonment she might, she admitted, be prevented sending her letter and receiving a reply, but by no other means. Appeals to duty were met by appeals to justice; she parried entreaty by counter-entreaty, reproofs by protestations of respect, orders by silence. What was to be done? Laura was too old, and the world was too old, for violent remedies. Intercepting correspondence meant exposure to the household. The revolt was appalling, absurd, unnatural; but it was also, as Mr. Pocklington admitted, “infernally awkward.” Laura realised that its awkwardness was her strength, and, having in vain invited actual physical restraint, in its absence walked out and posted her letter.

Then Mrs. Pocklington acted. At a day’s notice she broke up her establishment for the season, and carried her daughter off with her. She gave no address save to her husband. Laura was not allowed to know whither she was being taken. She was, as she bitterly said, “spirited away” by the continental mail, and all the communications cut. Only, just as the brougham was starting, when the last box was on, and Mr. Pocklington, having spoken his final word of exhortation, was waving good-bye from the steps, Laura jumped out, crossed the road, and dropped a note into a pillar-box.